Clothespin Airplane

I got inspired by several pins on Pinterest. So I played a bit around with clothespins and wooden popsicle sticks to make these clothespin airplanes.

I made them for my dad’s Christmas calendar – each present got an airplane with a number representing the date (1st – 24th). They are ment to represent the old Danish military DCH-1 Chipmunk. They result ended up pretty cute, so, of course I wanted to share them with you.

MATERIALS
– Small wooden clothespins
– Small popsicle sticks for the tail wing, rudder, and wings
– Silver spray paint
– Acrylic paint in the colours orange and black
– Hot glue gun and glue sticks
– A saw or some other tool to cut the popsicle sticks
– Sandpaper

STEP BY STEP GUIDE

Putting together the airplane
1. Cut the tail wing, rudder, and wings. The wing has to be 1/2 times bigger than the tail wing. The rudder have to be 1/3 the size of the tail wing. This is just an estimate and it doesn’t have to be exactly these sizes. The smaller you cut the rudder, the easier the popsicle sticks breaks.
2. Use the sandpaper on the edges of tail wing and wings to make them rounder.
3. Drop a dab of hot glue on the top of the metal on a clothespin.
4. Place an popsicle stick/the wing on top of the glue to create the wing. Press together firmly.
5. Drop a dab of glue on end/tail of the clothespin (same side as the wings was placed).
6. Place the tail wing on top of the glue. Press together firmly.
7. Put a dab of hot glue on the bottom of the tail rudder piece.
8. Glue to the rudder on the tail wing.

Painting the airplanes
1. Create a protected environment to spray paint.
2. Place a stick in the mouth of the clothespin to make a handle while spray painting.
3. Spray paint both side of the plane (you could also paint with acrylic paint and use a brush, but it won’t get an even surface).
4. Paint the orange and black parts.

All credit for the two pictures above goes to Alf Blume who can be found on Flickr.

As seen on the pictures above, there are a orange ring around the airplane just before the tailwing. There is an orange L-form on each wing – on the top and the bottom of the wing. Last but not least there’s an orange ring around the nose except from the tip of the nose, which is black. There are black lines around all the orange parts. You need to use a small brush for this.

Voilà! Your little Chippie is done. You can also paint them in other colours to your liking.
The airplanes can be used as party favors, for cards and presents. You can also add a magnet to the bottom of the airplane and use it as a fridge magnet.